There aren’t many congressional races where a challenger is running ahead of an incumbent in the polls more than a year and a half before Election Day, but that’s the situation in California’s 52nd District.

Two polls (one GOP survey in the spring and a media survey in June) show former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, a Republican, running ahead of Democratic Rep. Scott Peters.

DeMaio narrowly lost last year’s race to become mayor of San Diego and enjoys much higher name identification than the average new congressional challenger. Peters has been in office for less than a year and is not yet a household name.